Ril
by SilverWolf7
Summary: Jackie learns more about loss, life and love as she looks after an orphaned alien boy.


Because I am posting this one everywhere it seems. I love this story. It is rare for me to really like one of my own stories like this, but I do. Set sometime after Age of Steel.

Disclaimer: I don't own the known characters. The BBC does. I DO own Ril, Shedelaney and Granse though, they are mine. Please don't nab them without permission.

Ril

"Oh god, please don't tell me you ran off, got Rose pregnant and this is yours," Jackie stated as soon as she opened the door after hearing the TARDIS and finding Rose and the Doctor standing there with a...thing, which was obviously only a child.

For his part, the Doctor actually looked insulted. "Don't be silly. Of course not! His family was...well, he's all that's left. We couldn't leave him. It would have been cruel!"

"We found him in the rubble of his house, an earthquake made it collapse. His parents were crushed under the roof. He was heard screaming a mile away because it was so quiet afterwards."

Rose's words squirmed their way into her mind and heart and she looked at it, him, and she melted. "Poor little dear! What is he then? Is he supposed to look like this?"

The Doctor shifted slightly, trying not to wake the child in his arms up from the sleep he was having. "Yes, Jackie, he is supposed to look like this, and what he is isn't important right now. Can we come in, he's getting heavy."

She quickly got out of the way and watched as he took the child to the couch, laid him down and pulled his coat off, covering the boy gently so as not to wake him up. Small fingers wrapped around the edges and a thumb made its way into his mouth, and Jackie caught herself smiling, remembering when Rose would do that in her sleep sometimes.

Of course, Rose wasn't blue, nor did she have tentacle like tendrils for hair, and thankfully, she had a nose and proper ears. Things this child lacked, and made his face look even more alien than it already did. But still, it was a child, and didn't look too dangerous. He was what she thought aliens should look like.

The Doctor rummaged around in a small bag he was carrying and pulled out a collection of small toys, a few nappies, and of all things, a baby bottle, filled with some kind of blue liquid. "Don't worry, his kind are very gentle and peaceful. He's being a bit of a handful though. Only to be expected. He just lost his parents."

Jackie nodded and looked up at Rose, who was shifting slightly. "Mum, do you think you could look after him a few days. We're trying to get him into a home, but it's taking a while and we need a bit of a break."

Knowing how exhausting it is to look after a child, she smiled and nodded. "Sure. Just a few days mind, the last thing I need is for people to start wondering why I am staying away from them. And I can't imagine trying to explain that I'm looking after someone else's child. And it's an alien."

As if knowing he was being talked to, the boy in question shifted and woke, blinking wide black eyes up at her. Those eyes, with no whites in them swirled with moisture, and before long he was quietly crying to himself.

"Aw sweetheart. It's alright. You're going to stay with me for a few days." Without thinking, she picked him up and held him close, rocking him slightly in the same comforting way she used to do with Rose when she started crying as a child every father's day, when she came home from school cardless. She was the only one in her class who didn't have a dad.

A low keening sound reached her ears, and she didn't know if it was because he was hungry, he was missing his parents, or if it was some kind of weird alien language.

The Doctor seemed to know what it meant, as he winced visibly. "He's calling for his parents...he doesn't understand death, he's too young. He uses sounds to communicate right now. He can speak if he wants to, but he hasn't said a word since we found him. He's regressed in age. Children do that after a traumatic experience."

She held on tighter after hearing this. The poor thing must be so scared being here off of his planet and with strangers. Aliens. It was only then, as she thought it that she realised it was true. To this child, who could be no older than four, she was the alien. She was the weird looking thing that probably scared him.

She'd never once thought of it like that before. The Doctor looked human, so it was easy to forget sometimes that he wasn't. And he kept referring to himself as the alien. He had always referred to humans as that, humans, or when he looked like his old self, apes.

He only ever used the word alien in mentions of himself or sometimes technology. For everything else, he used species name. Now that Jackie thought of it, she found it rather odd.

She shook her head. This had nothing to do with the Doctor and everything to do with the child in her arms. She sat down on the couch and picked up the bottle the Doctor had set down. "How often do I give him the bottle? And how do I fill it up?"

"I'll show you later. Right now though I'm just plain tired. I've been up for nearly a week without sleep."

Jackie looked closer at him and saw how tired he was. She frowned at him. "That's a silly thing to do. Go lie down for a bit then." She was kind of surprised when he looked relieved, and wandered over to her room instead of Rose's.

Shrugging slightly her gaze turned back to her daughter. "Well, you don't look too tired."

"He refuses to let me do anything but sleep through the nights. Well, what can be classed as night in the TARDIS. He's been the one up at all ungodly hours trying to get him back to sleep, or feeding him. Most of the time though he's crying for his parents."

The keening sound the boy was making was still going on. It was stopped every now and then though for a few wet sobs, before he began again. It was amazing how much it was acting like a human child. Calling out for his parents, even though they weren't around anymore, and crying in between doing it.

She began to rub his back gently, in as soothing and unthreatening a way as possible. The last thing she wanted was him to be afraid of her any more than he must be already. Had he even seen a human before Rose?

After a while the noise died down to nothing but whimpers. For the moment he had given up on his parents coming for him, probably because his throat now hurt. Not knowing what to do, she gave him the bottle, and she watched as he half heartedly grabbed hold of it and brought it to his mouth, before gently suckling from it.

He stopped before it reached half way and looked up at her with those swimming black pools of eyes. He held it out to her. Clueless, she took it back and put it down in easy reach and just held him close, cradling him, his feet wrapped around her waist, as his little hands clung onto her shirt in a death grip that didn't look like it was going to loosen any time soon.

But it did, and Jackie widened her eyes, as his hands became somewhat interested in her breasts. He was kneading and pinching and squeezing and it hurt, because he wasn't being too gentle about it. She pulled his arms off. "No, that's hurting me and isn't nice."

He looked up at her with those eyes and blinked, before grabbing hold of her shirt again, and laying his head down. What did he think they were? Pillows? Did he even know what a pillow was?

Rose wasn't helping, she was just standing there watching with a slight smile on her face. "There is a reason the Doctor mainly carries him around. I think you just found it."

"He has a grip on him, doesn't he?" she said, glancing up from the boy on her lap to her daughter, who was wandering into the kitchen probably looking for the kettle to put on.

"Yeah. The Doctor could probably explain why, but don't get him started or he'll talk about it all day."

Truer words had never been spoken. This version of the Doctor loved talking. She shook her head. "Doesn't matter really, does it? Just as long as he can learn to keep his hands to himself, I'll be fine."

The boy squirmed a bit, sighing, before pulling out of her grip and onto the floor. He immediately went to the pile of toys the Doctor had left out. His hands found one in the shape of some type of lizard and he begun to move it around the floor. It made her smile, seeing something look so different to a human though with something along the same basic shape, acting so much like one.

One could almost forget the blue skin and corded, fleshy hair, and think of him as just any other normal child. And he was a normal child, but for a few unnatural habits. She was getting worried when he didn't make sounds as he played with his little wooden lizard on the floor.

Poor boy, so young and now orphaned. That would traumatise anyone. No wonder he was so silent most of the time.

She frowned when he bought the toy up to his mouth and begun sucking on it. Going into the bathroom, she went through the cupboard in there until she found what she was looking for. Her great nephew, Dylan, had left behind his dummy last time he was down here.

She washed it under the hot water tap for a bit just in case he could get sick from it and dried it quickly. She then went back out and watched as he threw the toy to the ground, picked it up again and begun to pound it into the floor head first.

Angry little thing. She would be too though.

"Sweetheart, come here, why don't you suck on this instead. It won't hurt your mouth," she said, seeing him turn to her and look at what she was holding out. Before he could move to grab it to give it the same treatment as the lizard, she popped it into his mouth.

He began sucking on it when he realised what it was for and calmed down immensely. He went from trying to kill his toy to playing with it again. It was the first time since she had seen him that he looked even remotely happy, though it looked a bit odd to see an older child with a dummy in his mouth.

She had noticed that his thumb was all wet, and that he had probably been told to stop sucking on that, but right now he just wanted something comforting to do. The dummy would be better for his teeth anyway.

Rose came and sat down on the couch, and just stared. "You know, that's the first time he's been this quiet for this long. It may last for around five minutes sometimes, but other than that he screams, he cries and he calls for his parents. It's really frustrating mum. Was I like that?"

"You were for a bit after your dad died, but not most of the time. Most of the time you were good."

She refused to state anything about what she was like going through puberty and her early teen years. That had been the nightmare for her. Especially when Jimmy Stone came onto the scene.

The day passed slowly, he had been playing all morning, barely making a sound, except to start to cry out for his parents again and she had fed the young boy the rest of his bottle at lunch and she placed him on the couch and watched as he popped the dummy back in his mouth and sucked on it, as he fell asleep for his midday nap.

Rose looked dazed at this. "What's wrong sweetheart?" she asked her quietly, as she put some sandwiches down on the table.

"He's sleeping. He's actually voluntarily going to sleep. We had to practically fight him to get him to lie down..."

Jackie looked down at him, and frowned. He didn't look like he had been losing sleep, but yet again, his colouring was a bit different to what she was used to seeing and his eyes were a bit hard to tell if they were bloodshot from lack of sleep, or crying. He'd definitely been crying earlier. Her shirt was still slightly wet from his tears.

They ate in that kind of comfortable silence that came after a job well done. It was that more than anything that tipped Jackie off to how worried Rose must have been for the boy. Yet again, the poor thing was hurting right now, and needed a comforting presence and Rose had been nothing but frustrated and irritated by the child. She didn't know how the Doctor was acting towards him, but it looked well enough.

He had been very gentle with the boy, almost like a father, but there was something missing or else he would be a bit more like he was with Jackie.

Maybe it was because what the boy wanted more than anything was its mother. And she was now dead.

After the plates had been washed and put away, the two went into Rose's room, and sat on her bed, catching up on each other's lives. It was incredibly good for Jackie to catch up with her daughter in this way, as it made her feel less like she was being abandoned for a man, and more like a mother who has let her child go out into the world to live their own life.

Sometimes it was the only thing that kept her going through the days, knowing that sooner or later Rose would be back for a visit, even if it was just for a couple of hours to talk, and perhaps a meal.

The sun was setting by the time the Doctor showed his face again, looking much better than before, and asking in his rude manner he had what was for dinner. No matter what planet they were from males seemed to think with two things and neither one happened to be their heads. Well, their brain anyway.

She had to give the Doctor credit though, he was definitely smart.

She shooed them away after that, letting them fend for their own meals, though she would have liked to have had Rose over for dinner as well as lunch.

A few interesting facts had come up for Jackie though, as the Doctor had told her how to make the extract the boy drank, and his species name. Tenedril. Jackie thought it fit more into fantasy than sci-fi, but she never said it out loud, because looking at the boy again and seeing his hair, she thought it was rather apt.

It was almost like tendril, which was what she thought his hair was like. Like vines on a tree, all smooth and skin and tapering, more than the tentacles most humans would think an alien would have. What she had originally thought.

She didn't learn a lot about the species, only enough to know how to feed him. Children without all their teeth, like this one, were still underdeveloped in the stomach. He would stick to the bottle until his last teeth grew in, which happened at around age 6. Apart from that, he seemed a lot like caring for Rose.

As the boy followed her around as she made dinner for the two of them, she smiled. She thought of naming him Shadow since he was beginning to follow her around like one, but decided something more him would do. So she started calling him Ril. He didn't mind as far as she could tell.

"Come on, Ril. Time for your bottle. Then you can go play more, before bedtime." She didn't know if he could understand her words, but her actions were loud enough apparently, as he took the bottle she held out to him, begun suckling from it, and he sat down where he was. Jackie made herself just a small meal. A few pieces of bread with butter, and two eggs. She was watched the entire time she ate it.

Ril's system was designed for plants. Strictly herbivorous, he probably was wondering why she could eat things like eggs. His own meal was made up of an extract from some blue leaves.

At least he didn't have the dummy in his mouth now. He had taken that out after his nap, and had decided that being her personal shadow was much better comfort.

After they had finished eating, she walked over to the toys, got down on her knees and begun to play with him, trying to get him to smile or make noise. The silence was getting to her. No child should be this quiet. It was unnatural.

After a while, she frowned, and wondered where he would sleep. He had been on the couch for today, but that wouldn't do for the night times. Smiling, she picked him back up, his little hand still wrapped around that lizard, which must have been a favourite toy, and she took him to Rose's bed.

Well, it wasn't as if her daughter was currently using it. If she ever did again, she would bless the Doctor for letting her have a night with her. And that, she decided was just wrong. She didn't need to thank him for anything when it comes to Rose.

Sometime during her sleep that first night, she had forgotten there was a child in the house, until she was woken by his crying. She waited for a few minutes before getting out of her own bed, just in case he had woken up from a nightmare and calmed down fast. No such luck, she found out, as the cries just got louder to her ears, and she began to worry that Sandra next door might come over to see the kid.

As far as she knew, it hadn't been a nightmare, or maybe he had one of those too, but he had wet the bed. She got him off, looked through the clothes Rose and the Doctor had left behind, and found a spare pair of pants. She then showed him where the toilet was and to go before he went to sleep. He seemed to understand which was a good thing, though he did seem fascinated with it.

After showing him that, she ran a bath. Hopefully it would settle him down for the rest of the night. Cleaning him of his accident, and drying him afterwards, she dressed him in the new pants, threw the other ones in the laundry basket, along with the soiled sheets and changed the bed.

He followed her around, still very quiet now that his crying had stopped. The poor thing was rubbing at his eyes and yawning, showing off blunt teeth. Just in case, she sat him on the loo, and waited until he had gone again, before putting him back to bed.

Next time she was woken up by small hands clinging to her breasts. The sun was up, and he was looking at her with those black eyes of his, with an expression of unease on his face. Looking at the time, she thought she knew why. It was almost 10 in the morning and he had missed his breakfast.

Nothing about that day was easy. He cried a lot more than he had the day before, he wouldn't let her touch him, refused to nap, and wouldn't drink his bottle at any of his mealtimes. He did play though, but it was the rough, angry play he had started doing the day before.

He didn't call for his parents; instead he started wordlessly yelling when he had played for a bit too long. She knew instinctively that this was a good thing, so let him get on with it. He was still small, was filled with grief and he didn't know how else to express it.

By the time night had come, he was asleep and she picked him up, woke him slightly to let him relieve himself, before dressing him in his pyjama's and putting him to bed.

He had exhausted himself to the point where he slept the entire night.

When she woke the next day, she found him still asleep, but stirring. She went about getting his breakfast. When his breakfast was ready, and he was awake, he drank it this time, which pleased her to no end.

This day was a lot easier. He let her touch him, he took his feedings, and he napped. And when he wasn't doing those, he would climb up the length of her body, grasped her chest in his hands, before she moved them to someplace less likely to be hurt, and he lay his head down on her breasts and felt her breathing.

He still hadn't said a word, but that was alright. He seemed to be more content today though.

She thought the day would go well all the way through, and it was a testament to how much she was getting used to having Ril around, that when there was a knock on the door, she answered with him napping while clinging to her.

"Oh, Sandra. Hi!" she said as she opened the door and found her next door neighbour and friend standing with her hand ready to knock again.

For a few moments Sandra said nothing at all, and then she beamed at her. "Jackie! Didn't expect to actually see you look after a kid so late in the school term. Interesting costume he's wearing. School play?"

"Costume? No, this is what he looks like. He's Tenedrillan or something like that."

"Oh? What's that then?"

Jackie shrugged. "Dunno, Rose dropped him off a few days ago before swanning off again to parts unknown. Poor thing lost his home and parents. I said I'd look after him for a few days. He's going back to Rose and the Doctor soon. If he's lucky to a foster home of his own kind."

Sandra laughed and woke him up. He blinked at this new human and clung on tighter. The other woman blinked. "Oh, god, Jackie, his eyes. Something's wrong with him."

Jackie quickly looked down at him to see what was wrong, but just found him to stare up at her and cling on even tighter. She relaxed. "Nothing's wrong. Well, he's missing his parents, and he's been dumped on a place completely and utterly alien to him, but apart from that, he is doing pretty well considering. I think anyway."

She didn't know if it was the calm way she said it, or the word usage, but Sandra stared at her. "Alien? He's an alien?!" it was said in a whisper, as if anyone heard her, they would think her nuts. Jackie really couldn't blame her for that, but it was so normal for her to know about things like this, and for a minute she had simply forgotten other people didn't.

"Come in and close the door."

Sandra stood outside another two minutes, before slowly treading over the doorway and into the flat, slowly closing the door like as if doing so would end her sanity and she would fall into a pit of madness.

Going out into the kitchen, Jackie made Ril his afternoon bottle, and gave it to him, and he sucked on that while Sandra watched, her eyes wide and scared. "Oh don't be so scared. He's 4 years old and herbivorous. What's he going to do to you?"

"He's an alien?"

"Yeah. But it isn't like he's dangerous or anything. He's a sweetie really. Rose will be coming back to pick him up soon, like I said."

"Rose is an alien?!"

Jackie blinked at the woman in front of her. "No, don't be silly. Rose is just as human as you or me. It's the Doctor who's the alien."

"Aliens. Next door to me. Aliens!"

Jackie sighed and closed her eyes, remembering how utterly freaked she had been when she had found out about the Doctor. "Come on Sandra. Who doesn't know about aliens now? Look at Christmas. With the Sycorax invasion. The Doctor was sick then, but he got better. Just in time too. Though he was kind of...out of it for the few days afterwards. Come on, you've met him. Thought he was a nice guy too."

"Taking Rose travelling you said..."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Just...he can take her to anywhere in the universe, instead of just anywhere on Earth..."

"The universe..." If anything, Sandra's voice had gotten even quieter and higher pitched.

"Well, they can also travel through time."

"Aliens and time travel and the universe. Jackie. This is insane!"

And this time Jackie sighed, sat down, making sure she didn't hurt Ril's feet as she did so and nodded. "Yeah maybe it is, but you get used to it after a while. Been my life for...almost two years now."

"Why didn't you say anything?!"

"What would I have said? Oh yeah, by the way, when I say my daughter is travelling, that means to places you wouldn't have even heard of, and the places you have, they might be in their past or future? Would you have believed me?"

Sandra shrugged, nodded for a few seconds, before closing her eyes and shaking her head. "No, I wouldn't."

And then to top it all off, a familiar sound started piercing the silence that had descended over the flat and Jackie closed her eyes as the TARDIS materialised right in front of Sandra. In a mad flurry of brown coat, the Doctor exited, smiling widely at the three on the couch.

"Hello, we found junior here a home. Nice family. They will take good care of him." He paused, looked to Sandra and scrunched up his face as if thinking hard over something. "Sandy right? We met at the New Year's party. Nice to see you again."

"It's Sandra," said the other woman, before she fell to her side on the couch in a faint.

The Doctor blinked. "Well, yes that happens sometimes. Culture shock. Happens to the best of us."

Jackie shook her head. "I forgot that most people don't know about you and aliens and things like this. I answered the door with Ril hanging onto me."

"Ril? He spoke?!"

She shook her head. "No. That's just what I've been calling him. You know, instead of 'hey, you.'"

The Doctor nodded, frowned for a minute, before he smiled again. "Well, he has a new home now at any rate. Nice people. Can't have children of their own."

Jackie shifted on her seat slightly at that, before putting Ril down on the ground and watched as he took himself over to the toys that were stacked in one corner of the room. "Do you think you can wait until Sandra has gone home? I know it might sound a bit crazy coming from me and everything, but I'd like to see him off."

The Doctor had looked at her long and hard for a few minutes, before he smiled in a way that wasn't at all crazy. "Of course. It'll be odd. Never had someone's mother on board before."

Sometime during him saying that, Sandra woke up from her faint and stared at the TARDIS. Her eyes going over to the others there, taking in the Doctor and Ril, before going back over to the blue box in the middle of the room. "Crazy. Completely crazy."

He shook his head and frowned. "Nah, not completely crazy. Slightly, maybe, but not completely."

Before the woman could turn her eyes away from the TARDIS, its doors opened and Rose stepped out. "Doctor what's taking so...oh. Sandra! Hi! Long time no see."

Jackie thought she heard the other woman mutter a quiet 'time travel' before she got to her feet. "I've...got to go now. Bye Jackie, Rose, Doctor."

A chorus of 'byes' followed the woman out the door as it was slowly, gently and very quietly closed. They heard rushing of feet to the door next door, whee Sandra lived. None of the people still in Jackie's flat thought she would remember it.

"And that is the reason why I can't tell anyone about this..." Jackie stated, slowly standing and walking over to where Ril was on the floor, playing with his lizard again. The dummy was firmly stuck between his lips.

"Why's he got a pacifier in his mouth?" the Doctor asked, coming over to where they were, and kneeling next to them.

"He was sucking on his thumb. Not healthy that. Dylan's dummy is much better for the teeth. Well, if he was human that'd be the way it worked. Don't know about Tenedrillans."

The Doctor beamed at her. "No, no that's good. I didn't think of that, since he wasn't caught with his thumb in his gob when I was with him."

He reached down to pick the boy up, and Ril kicked up a fuss, screaming and kicking and pushing away hands that were trying to be nothing but gentle. He was clinging back on to her again within no time, lizard in one hand, breast in the other.

"Ril, hands." He moved his hand higher up where it was only clutching at her shirt.

She turned to the Doctor and frowned. "You see, this is the reason I'm going with you. He's attached himself to me."

"You're coming with us?! To an alien planet? My mum, on an alien planet..." Rose said, leaning against the TARDIS and looking rather stunned, yet pleased, at the prospect.

Silence descended in the flat for a few minutes as everyone contemplated just how momentous this day was. It wasn't that Jackie didn't know that they travelled through space and time, because she did. She had, however, always been rather scared of the thought of even entering the TARDIS, let alone going on a trip with them.

An alien planet was a big step for her.

Still the same, she needed to see the foster parents. Make sure he was alright with them. Say a proper goodbye. Because Ril had gotten quite attached to her in these two days.

It wasn't as if she had gotten attached back or anything. She wouldn't miss him in the least. She had just been doing her motherly duty of looking after a child who needed a parent figure around in a hard time.

He'd be fine. She'd be fine. They'd both be just fine.

Maybe she could convince the Doctor to take her on visits every now and then...

"Well! No used standing around here doing nothing. Let's go!" The Doctor stated, jumping to his feet in a swift movement that had him almost land flat on his face. Ril giggled, Jackie rolled her eyes and smiled.

Rose was already inside the ship waiting for them. Ril clung on tighter, the toy digging almost painfully into her shoulder where the hand holding it was resting. It seemed the boy was just as scared of the TARDIS's insides as she was. Because it really was much, much bigger on the inside, and that wasn't natural.

The Doctor practically bounced around the console, calling out what he was doing to her as he did it, everything he said going right over the top of her head. She wondered if Rose had heard this so many times that she actually began to understand, because she was casually leaning against a railing off to one side, looking at her and smiling.

"You might want to hold onto something Jackie. The TARDIS can get a little bit...bumpy on her landings."

Rose laughed out loud and shook her head. "What he means is it usually always is."

"Alright! Tenedris, here we come!" The Doctor pulled at a lever and there was a jolt, and Jackie was glad she followed his advice and had latched onto the railing herself. The column in the centre was moving up and down, and that oh so familiar sound filled the room as the TARDIS raced through whatever it raced through, before landing with a bump which thankfully wasn't as bad as she had thought it would be.

Ril squealed out loud in what she thought was fright until she looked down on him to check he was alright and saw the grin on his face. Oh, it figured, it really did. Kids of all races were universally the same when it came to things that go bump or make pretty noises.

The column came to a stop, and the Doctor went over to her grinning. "Not as bumpy as normal, though not completely steady as she sometimes goes if she's in the mood. Well, how about it Jackie. Outside, a new world for you to set foot on."

It was only now that the TARDIS was at their destination that the situation really sank in. She had asked to go to take Ril to his new guardians, and they were waiting outside the ship. Fully grown versions of little Ril, who was clinging to her still, but his grip loose now, the lizard toy slowly being stomped up and down her arm.

"Yeah. It's frightening really."

He laughed and his eyes sparkled at her with his usual insane pleasure at things that could be possibly dangerous. "Oh, I know that feeling. Everyone starts somewhere Jackie. Even I did. Come on! Nothing dangerous on this planet apart from the occasional earthquake."

Slowly, she held Ril closer to herself, as she crept closer to the doors that led to the planet outside. Rose walked in quickly beside her and smiled. "Really mum, nothing to worry about here."

Taking a deep breath, she reached for the door, the other arm still clinging to the boy holding on to her, and opened the door.

Her first impression was that she had entered normal Earth plain lands, like the kind you might find in Africa, but for the dense copses of trees that were much bigger than she'd expect to find in an area like that. The leaves were blue, just like the ones she had been using to make Ril's bottle. The grass was still green though, and the sky was still blue, though a much deeper colour than she was used to seeing back at home.

There was a small village with tall mud brick house-like structures not too far away, and she could see a few children that looked like Ril racing around in what she could only say was a garden. A much larger version of the toy he carried around darting in and out of their feet. The boy in her arms shifted slightly, wanting to be put down.

She let him go, and he stared around, frowning slightly, before he started keening in that wailing call for his parents. He knew he was on his own world now, and thought that they might still be there. He started crying when he got no reply.

"His village? Or does that sound carry over to where he used to live?"

The Doctor walked up beside her. "It carries. He doesn't fully understand that they are gone for good. Not yet anyway. He will eventually. Then he can get on with his life."

Jackie nodded, placing a comforting hand on Ril's head. He clung to her leg then and held on as tight as his fingers would let him, making her wince.

It was only then that she noticed two of the adult creatures that were Ril's species coming towards them. Both were tall and blue, the male a bit larger in build than the female, though both were skinny and light and long in arm and fingers. The reason Ril was so interested in her chest also came apparent. Not needing to feed children through mother's milk, and instead on the leaf extract, the females had no need of what Jackie thought of as breasts. The females were just as flat-chested as the males. Neither sex wore much in the way of a shirt, but the females wore long flowing skirts, and the males wore pants.

The cute features of Ril she saw would become what were stunning when he matured into an adult, and she was shocked to find she was longing to see the transformation from cute, awkward, grieving child into tall, strong adult.

She had seen it with Rose. Been there for most of it, until the Doctor came and changed her into a better person. Jackie knew that Rose would reach her full potential doing what she was with the Doctor, but she couldn't really appreciate it until now.

Just as long as things stayed 'just friends' between the two of them, she didn't care. She drew the line at having alien grandchildren thanks very much. But still, the thought of watching the child she had helped the last few days going through normal life processes would be fascinating.

And here she was worrying that this race would grow up to be an herbivorous type of Slitheen. She was glad she was wrong. Really, really glad actually. She didn't know what she'd do if she had accidentally blew the kid up using vinegar.

"Jackie Tyler, meet Shedelaney and Granse. Lovely couple, really."

Jackie nodded towards the two aliens and let go of Ril, giving him a small push in the small of his back to go towards the adults.

The child didn't need much prompting, soon crawling up the female, Shedelaney's, body and burying his head by her chest to feel the breaths and heart. He had done the same thing with her, bless him.

Before she tried to do something incredibly stupid, she turned and without looking behind her, ran back in the TARDIS and slammed the doors behind her. A minute later, the Doctor came in and sat on the chair in front of the screen, which was covered in post-it notes with nothing but weird circles and lines drawn on them. For that matter, it's what was on the screen too.

They became indistinct blurs, and she lifted a tired hand to swipe at her eyes.

"Goodbyes are never easy, Jackie, but he needs one. _You_ need one. Go back out there and tell him."

She whirled to face him and tripped on the grating that made up the floor of the TARDIS. "Why? It'll just hurt him more."

The Doctor was shaking his head, she could see it through the sheen covering her eyes. "No, believe me, no it won't. You were the first person who really cared for him after a very big tragic event. A memory like that sticks Jackie. Do you want him to remember you as the nice lady who took him in and helped? Or the woman who turned her back and left him?"

Shifting on the spot, leaning down to rub at her ankle even though she hadn't hurt it, Jackie shrugged. "I don't know..."

"He liked you Jackie. I tried to be what you were to him, but couldn't...it just reminded me too much of what I've lost. He missed that something I couldn't give him."

Jackie frowned at him. "You were a dad once? Or did I misunderstand that."

"I was a dad, yeah."

Jackie winced. "Oh, I'm sorry."

The Doctor shrugged, and grinned at her. "Doesn't matter right now, this isn't about me, this is about you and a child that needs some closure."

Taking a deep breath, Jackie gave a small nod and moved back to the door, waiting a few tortuous seconds before opening the door and stepping back outside. Rose was trying to help the couple calm the boy down. Ril was hysterical, trying to get inside the ship he had seen her disappear inside.

"Mum, do something!" Rose said, as Ril spotted the open doors, went flying over to her and climbed up her body faster than he had gone up the length of the woman of his own species. He began crying in big wet sobs, and it was all Jackie could do to not break down crying herself.

She walked the rest of the way out of the TARDIS and sat on the dusty ground, holding the boy tighter to her. "Aww, Ril, I'm sorry. I've got to go home. It'd be unfair to you to stay with me; you wouldn't be able to get out of the flat."

To her shock he held her closer and spoke for the first time in the few days since she had known him. "No! Jackie!" He must have heard the Doctor calling her by her name. And it felt so good and wonderful and completely heartbreaking that he was saying it now.

"Sweetheart, I've got to go. The nice couple over there are going to look after you from now on. And I promise I'll come to visit, yeah?"

"No!" His voice was hoarse and more a whisper than a shout from disuse, but he was talking, even if it was just that word right now. She wondered slightly how she could understand him, since she was sure that he shouldn't be speaking English. Yet again, Rose had said something once, during Christmas, that the TARDIS translates alien languages.

"I'll visit often alright? You'll get sick of me showing up."

He clung on tighter. "No."

"Come on Ril, I've got to go now. I'll walk you over to your carers." She wouldn't use the word parents. For one they weren't, even if they would take on that kind of role for him. No one could replace his real parents though, and she knew that.

"Don't want you to go..."

She clung to him, and she didn't even know why this was hurting her so much. She had known him, a small alien boy, for less than three days. "I know. And I don't want to leave you either, but I've got to go back home, just like you had to come back here."

He didn't say anything else again, just whimpered softly in her arms, but he nodded slightly against her. Slowly, Jackie stood up, and walked over to the two foster parents who were looking quite awkward and worried. She walked over to Granse, who hadn't yet held the boy, and passed Ril over to the arms of the new male figure in his life.

Before she could fully go again, a small hand caught her wrist, and the small lizard toy was given over to her. "Pet."

Jackie smiled. "Yeah, pet." She rummaged around in her pockets, before she found Dylan's dummy and gave that to him. "You keep this then, better than a thumb."

He didn't put it in his mouth; instead, he clutched it in his fist. She let her hand run over his head and smiled at him again. "Bye."

He didn't say it back. He had gone back to the small whimpering, but he waved with his free hand. She waved as she walked over to the TARDIS, opened the doors and stepped inside, putting the toy in her pocket as she did so. Rose followed her in quietly, before disappearing through a small door she hadn't spotted before.

The doors closed behind her of their own accord. The Doctor was suddenly by her side. "Let's go find you a room. You can lie down a bit."

She nodded, because she really did feel like a lie down right now. It seemed better than moping about where she was until she got home. A room was waiting for her as soon as they stepped into the corridors on the opposite side of the door she only realised was there.

She was left alone then, and did the first thing that came to mind. She fell onto the bed completely clothed and cried like she had wanted to since the Doctor had come to pick up Ril. She didn't care that the Doctor could probably hear her with how loud she was being. She just wanted to go back there and save that child from living with people he may not even like. And the Doctor had said it himself, the boy had liked her.

At the same time she knew how utterly unfair it would be to poor Ril if she did just that, because he really wouldn't get to leave the flat, being so utterly alien to the humans that occupied planet Earth.

The conversation with Sandra next door had proven that.

Why was nothing fair anymore?! First her own child had run off, and now she had just given away another, passed him on to another adult to look after. She was playing tag with a life...it wasn't right.

She exhausted herself and fell asleep, only to wake up to find the room was dark. Frowning, she got up, stretched and wandered out into the hallway beyond the room. The door into the console room was still where it was, which was a good thing for her. She checked in there to see if the Doctor was tinkering about with his machine but he wasn't. The column was moving up and down, and there was a slight hum throughout the ship. Rose wasn't in sight either.

Sighing, she walked back into the corridors that probably went on forever, content to do a little exploring. She wanted to find a kitchen and something to eat, perhaps with a nice cup of fresh tea. It wasn't that much of a surprise to find the kitchen was opposite the bedroom she had been given. With the kitchen, she found the Doctor.

He was standing by the kettle, holding onto the bench like it was a lifeline, which seemed a bit odd to her. She reached a hand out and touched his shoulder, only to be shrugged off. It took her a few seconds to recognise the small noises he was making for what they were. He was crying.

Grabbing onto his shoulders, she led him to the table in the middle of the room and sat him down on the nearest chair, before going to put the kettle on. By the time it was boiled and she had two cups of tea ready, he had settled down.

She wasn't stupid, she knew what he was crying about, especially considering her conversation with him earlier. "You don't cry over it often, do you?"

He shook his head. "No." His voice had that nasally tone to it one got when their nose was blocked. She pulled a few tissues out from where she had tucked them into her sleeve in case she started crying again and handed them to him.

They sat in silence then, until their tea cups were empty and she had put them in the sink. It was weird, being in this kitchen. Some things were so normal, and others were so completely alien she had no idea what they were and even if she did, she doubted she would know how to use them.

It was very much like the Doctor though, having bits and pieces from all different civilizations yet the only thing from his own planet was the ship itself.

He shifted slightly and looked at her, his eyes still slightly bloodshot. "When it first...happened. The shock of it was unbearable. Strong. I couldn't _move_ from it. All I could see over and over was that one second of time. Just...boom. It destroyed everything but me and my TARDIS. Everything. It wiped out half the _star system_, not just my planet, or the Daleks. Everything."

He had the last clean tissue in his hand and begun shredding it into tiny pieces, without consciously knowing he was doing it. "I didn't eat, didn't sleep, and didn't drink. For...days. I was cold and hot and couldn't stop shaking. Shock does that you know. Well apart from the heat, that was in my head. I just wanted it to end. And after a while it did. My body just gave out, like yours would do."

Jackie nodded. "You regenerated like you did at Christmas."

He nodded again. "Yeah. It...helped a bit I think. Found some clothes. Dark, shaved my head. You saw me. When I regenerate I take on aspects of the people or things around me from the end of my last life. I...got stuck."

She frowned at him. "Apart from the hair, you didn't really act like a soldier though, but I suppose now I think of it, yeah, you might have tried."

The Doctor shook his head. "I do things on a whim. I wasn't myself then, I didn't know what I was. I knew who I was, and for the one time I wanted amnesia, I remembered everything. And last thing I was happened to be a soldier. Not a very good one, but still. I fought in that war. It destroyed everything."

Leaning across the table she placed a hand on his. "You're better now."

He leaned his head at a funny angle and put on a familiar face. The one that said that he was about to go on about something. He was in lecture mode. She found it a bit odd. He didn't look like he could talk about this for very long. "Weeell. Better, maybe, but I wouldn't say that I'm _better_ better. Stripes. My suit I can blame on you Jackie. And I got the accent from Rose. Dunno where I got the rudeness from, but I'm definitely that sometimes too."

Jackie snorted. "You got your taste of fashion from me? How'd that happen then?"

"Well, as far as I know, you're the one who got those pyjamas on me. I know you, you wouldn't let Rose near me to do something like that. And Mickey would have been the 'eww, I don't want to touch him more than necessary' kind of guy."

Thinking back she remembered those pyjamas and yep, they had definitely been striped. "Well, it's a good thing it was the stripes then."

The Doctor cocked his head to one side and put on a confused look. "Why?"

"Could have been pyjamas."

The look of horror on the Doctor's face made her laugh, and he grinned cheekily at her in response. "The scary part about that is it's true."

They slipped into an easy silence this time. It didn't last long. "The awful thing about it is I didn't even start crying until I ran into a Dalek again. And that happened...years later. Rose was with me. She helped me so much during my last incarnation. You have no idea, Jackie."

She shrugged. She wasn't really sure right now she did want to know what went on with them. She was sure he would have said something more if he wasn't stopped by a yawn. "And now, I am going to follow Rose's example, and go to bed for the night. Lights off, 8 hours, sleep time for humans."

Jackie frowned. "I think I just slept half the day. I'm not that tired right now."

He grinned, and the look was completely real right then. He was genuinely amused. It looked different from the manic mask he usually wore. "Well, there's a library somewhere, and a television, and music, and a few gardens, a pool...ask the TARDIS, she'll take you to where you want to go."

With that said, he wandered out of the kitchen, and she watched as he disappeared down a passageway, and was lost to her vision. She frowned, and wondered what she could do. Deciding that it might be better if she just grabbed something to read and head back to her room, she was confounded by the library when she came across it where it was, just a few doors down the corridor she was in.

She'd never find a single book to read in that place, it was simply too big to choose out of, and quickly got out, heading back to her room, empty handed but believing that the ship could possibly be alive. She had been told it was, by both the Doctor and Rose, but hadn't really believed it now.

Then she remembered once Mickey saying something about the screen in the console room picking up all basic channels. Going past what could possibly not be her room anymore and going back into the console room, she looked at the screen and frowned. "Well, how does this work as a telly then?" she said, not knowing if she was talking to herself or the ship by this time.

A button on the console flashed, and startled, but pushing it, she found herself watching the news. Earth news. Every time she pushed the button, the screen would switch to a different channel, and she found herself fascinated by it. She recognised several earth languages, and before she knew it there were alien programmes on. Soaps, news, reality television, documentaries. The works, from different species, though a lot were still from humans, just not earthbound.

Humans really did go out there and populate the universe then.

In that moment she was rather proud of her own race. They survived.

It seemed only a few minutes since she had been in there, casually flicking through channels when the TARDIS lit up, and she was soon joined by Rose and the Doctor.

In less than a minute, she was out of the TARDIS and back in her flat. She was home and it felt so empty. With Mickey gone, and Rose away most of the time, Ril had given her some company. Now, she was alone once again.

"Doctor?" she called, before he could disappear fully back inside his ship.

He popped his head back out and looked at her. "Yes Jackie?"

She shifted from foot to foot nervously, before she finally did ask him. "Will you take me to visit him sometimes? You know, on birthdays and days like that? I promised him I would see him."

He smiled at her again, and in that moment she was sure that the Doctor was proud of her. _Her._ She was sure he usually couldn't stand her. "Of course. Can't leave him to stay there without you forever can I? You're important. More important to him than you'll ever know."

With a nod, he disappeared back inside, the door closed and the TARDIS disappeared from the inside of her flat, where it had once again parked itself.

She pulled the lizard toy out of her pocket, patted its wooden head gently, and put it on a shelf next to pictures of Rose. She'll have to take her camera and get pictures of Ril. Because now she did have a chance to watch him grow up.

It was with that thought that she smiled and set about tidying up her flat a bit. She thought that maybe she would invite Bev over and have a party. Celebrate life, and loved ones. Celebrate the passing from one life into another. New worlds and people.

And even to mourn a bit for those who had died to make all this possible in the first place. Without them, she never would have known that there could be such good life on other planets that were so utterly not human.

In the past few days, she, a woman now 40 years old, had done a bit of growing up herself. And while it hurt sometimes, it also felt good.

Jackie Tyler was beginning to understand a bit more about life.


End file.
